they means the scientists. One question though what is the bone of contention in realizing full optical computing ?
is it the material which is lacking to manipulate light with light. from what I have googled most say it is the material, while these things (optical transistor, the read/write...
So they also want detector to be fully optical, that means output to be pure light and that means all optical memory with read and write capabilities.
That thing would be difficult to make.
If we use 2 lasers with selectable light intensities as input, with each level of intensity corresponding to decimal number.
Like
level 0 intensity - decimal 0 (MIN)
level 1 intensity - decimal 1
level 2 intensity - decimal 2
...
level 9 intensity - decimal 9 (MAX)
and directly shine both of...